Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Fri, 31 Oct 1997 16:38:02 +0100
Martin, thanks for your reply:
> It makes sense that one
>actuality sprang into existence, but when? Why not sooner? Or later?
>What caused this one in particular to spring into existence?
Well, what causes a die to land on a six in a specific throw, what causes
the quantum mechanical measurement to measure one state when more are
equally possible. Nothing causes it. We might imagine describing the exact
movement and interactions of the die, but we have some evidence that we
will never be able to find any order below the quantum measurement. This
is what an indeterministic world is like, it harbours the un-caused, the
in-determinate. The idea of our world being indeterminate, and the idea
that it sprang out of nothing, without something causing this becoming,
these ideas are necessarily connected - or so I say.
>Are you familiar with the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre? His concept
>of 'consciousness' is similar because it exists as nothingness until a
>person actualizes himself by the decisions and actions he makes during
>his lifetime.
No, I have heard of Sartre second hand, but I have never read his work. His
idea of consciousness sounds interesting in this context.
>Aha, but in this case we already had an actualized die that had limited
>possibilities and we were able to cause this actualized die to bring
>another actualization into existence (out of those intrinsic
>potentials). That actualization was of course the six on top. We were
>able to throw this die, a causal event, because it was actualized. What
>of Dynamis? Pure potentiality?
The die example is meant to provide a picture of randomness and possibility
in a more handy way. As I have indicated, the possible being in our present
world rests on what actually exists, this is very explicit in a die. Pure
potentiality hence can only be imagined in a world with no actual being,
this is what makes it difficult to handle.
>So you're suggesting 'time' is something that we conceptualize when we
>see two objects move? I said something similar. This would make sense,
>and by reducing it from its primacy in our worldview, we can open up
>some room for DQ before existence, before time. But I still see this
>whole 'non-temporal period' of existence, or lack thereof, as being very
>vague.
Indeed, it is very difficult for us to talk of and imagine something 'out
of time', but I think we have to take some view like this in light of a
metaphysics of quality. Pirsig wrote that he would prefer if anyone trying
to modify or develop MoQ used a different label, as not to confuse matters,
and I have given my own pet metaphysics the name Relationary Metaphysics
(though it is much less aesthetic). It is however closely related to MoQ.
The thing that might become more evident when using the term Relation
instead of Quality, is that what becomes in our world is not things, not
objects, but relations - dynamically becoming and static existence. One of
the intriguing aspects of this is that space and time ceases to be
'baskets', they are not preexisting dimensions which objects arise and move
*in*. Rather space and time are ways of describing the relationary beings,
space is (first) the necessary possibility space for possible relations,
and relations becoming actual space necessarily follows. Just as if we make
a never hitherto seen 29-facetted die, we necessarily make a space of
possible outcomes too. I am not saying the space of the universe is like
the space of the die, just trying to make pictures that enable some form of
understanding. My thoughts on time arose in a similar way, and though there
are still many vague spots in these thoughts, I find many ways to progress.
>
>How about this: DQ can be described as the ocean of existence that
>comprises 'nowness.' This infitesimally small temporal moment that
>constitutes 'now,' this moment where two moving objects wouldn't be seen
>to move at all, is what the entire Dynamis consisted of. Actually this
>might make some sense. If everything before the Big Bang, or before
>creation, was simply the same infitesimally small moment, it would
>explain why there was no time at that 'time.' It would explain where
>there wasn't an infinity of time that preceded the Big Bang and solve
>the question of why or how the singularity decided to Bang at some
>specific moment. Why? Because everything was that same exact moment!
>There was no decision to make. Time becomes meaningless, but Dynamic
>Quality remains meaningful, because when existence becomes total Dynamic
>Quality, it also becomes a single moment.
I wouldn't put it exactly that way, but I see what you mean. The thing
about time and moment, as it shows in Zenons paradoxes, is that whenever we
try to imagine motion as 'motion in time' we end up in paradox. Because
motion is primary to time, time as a measurement is something which
*presupposes* motion, not a kind of dimension which motions takes place
'in'. And if time is not a dimension, the ancient confusions on what 'now'
is, and how it can exist as an 'infinitesimal stretch of time', and how it
can 'flow' and so on gets resolved. 'Now' is simply the world as it is, and
now does not flow - everything in the world flows. When we are driving
along the road, now is not moving - we are moving. Time is a way of
distending our record of a dynamic actual world. The problem being that
time is a basic metaphysical term, a cornerstone of our understanding and
language, and hence very difficult to discuss in the same language.
Regards
Hugo
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